Lion Apart
by Spoonbilled Sandpiper
Summary: Rose never meant for anyone to get hurt...
1. Chapter 1

It was a dark and stormy night. A dark and stormy Halloween night, no less. Wind howled around the turrets, and whistle in between the ancient window frames of the castle. A full moon shone overhead, the light spilling through the thin windows and onto the stone floors of the third floor corridors. When Rose finally reached the statue of the hump-backed witch, it cast an eerie shadow down the hallway.

The night couldn't have been more perfect for what she had planned.

"Lumos," Rose whispered, glancing around nervously as she did so. She wished she was able to do silent spells. Hugo had managed it within a week, but Rose couldn't get it. She pushed aside the statue and slipped into the narrow passageway beyond. It was a tight squeeze for the first few feet, and then the space opened out into a room almost the size of the Slytherin dormitory. Sensing her presence, the torches on the wall burst into blue flame. Rose put down her wand and began to rummage through her bag, laying the rest of the night's supplies beside it. A thick lump of artist's charcoal. Black salt. Black candles. Black gloves, cloak and hood. And finally, a thick book bound in black leather, the pages yellowing and ancient. Rose pulled on the black clothing and opened the book to the correct page, although she'd already memorised what she needed to do.

Carefully, she drew a circle on the floor with the charcoal, and another, smaller circle to the side. She placed the candles and sprinkled salt, before bringing the wand and the book into the smaller circle. She sat down and crossed her legs. Then, taking a deep breath, she began.

"_Godric Gryffindor, invocar thee. Si transierit ad terminos orbis terrarum, et sobolem nostram vestramque. Cum hoc sapientia et fortitudo tua benedict. Godric Gryffindor, invocar thee._" And then waited.

She hadn't quite known what to expect. The candles around the bigger circle flickered. Rose felt her heart skip a beat with excitement. Was it a draught from the storm outside, or the spirit testing the boundaries? She felt herself leaning forwards, careful not to overstep the boundaries, and-

"What the _hell _are you doing?"

Rose leapt to her feet in surprise, and on realising who it was took a step back in surprise. "Uh- Scorpius. I-I didn't expect to see you here."

He frowned around at the stuff on the floor, the shiny Head Boy badge on his chest gleaming in the torchlight. Rose suddenly felt incredibly childlike. This type of magic was half myth, which was one of the reasons she'd wanted to try it. "I can only assume that this isn't what it looks like. Nobody would be that stupid." He looked up, and Rose blushed as his clear blue eyes met hers for the first time. "Get this cleared up, and detention for a week."

"Y-yes," Rose stammered, hurrying to do as he said. She shoved her stuff into her bag, taking much less care than she had before. Scorpius watched her as she did it, and she tried to ignore his cool eyes on her. Finally, she was done and scurried out of the room without a backwards glance. She hurried back down the hallway, her cheeks hot and her eyes pricking with tears. _Why did it have to be Scorpius?_ Why couldn't it have been someone, anyone, else? Instead of the boy she'd had a crush on for her first three years at Hogwarts, Head Boy, better than her at every class. It wasn't until she reached the dormitory and crawled into bed silently that it occurred to her to wonder what Scorpius had been doing down there. It wasn't part of the normal patrol route for Prefects. Probably just meeting another girl, she thought bitterly.

She didn't notice the shadow that followed at her heels back to the Dormitory, peeling away as she climbed into bed and drifting back the way it had come.


	2. Chapter 2

Rose handed in her essay the next day, and then made her way over to the desk she always sat at to start on her next piece of work. The desk was close to the back, mostly hidden behind stacks of books. Normally it was the quietest place in the library to work, which was good because concentrating didn't usually come easily to Rose.

Today, however, the peace was broken by a pair of girls hovering by the History of Magic shelves. "So what happened between you and Albus last night then?" the first one whispered.

"Nothing to interest you," the second girl teased.

"Harmony! You have to tell me!"

"Fine- we just talked until everyone else went to bed, then we kissed for a while."

"And then?"

"And then nothing. We went to bed because he had early Quidditch practice. Honestly…" They both giggled and moved away, and Rose's corner was silent again save for the ticking of the clock on the wall. She tried to ignore the lonliness that suddenly washed over her and stared down at her paper, trying to focus but instead imagining what it would be like to kiss a boy (although not her cousin Albus, yuck). It was years since she'd even had a crush- maybe even her teenage hormones had given her love life up for lost. Not for the first time, she wished she wasn't in Ravenclaw- she certainly wasn't smart enough to be there. She felt as though everyone in her family was remarkable apart from her- her mother was tipped to be the next Minister for Magic, her father was instantly liked by everyone he met, her brother always got top marks in anything he did.

Rose shook herself slightly and glanced down. She'd been drawing as she thought, and now the page contained a drawing of a creature with a gaping mouth, a shaggy mane and a pair of tiny wings sprouting from its back. Rose frowned at it, annoyed by the impossibility of flying on such a tiny pair of wings. Then she screwed up the paper and pulled out another, this time forcing herself to pay more attention to the essay.

Hours later, she was finished. She knew that what she had wasn't a masterpiece, but it would have to do- she was exhausted, and this essay was due tomorrow. If only reading things didn't take her so long- at her muggle primary school she had received a diagnosis for something called 'dyslexia', which her mother had worked hard to ensure she was helped with. At Hogwarts, however, nobody seemed to realise that such a thing existed. Rose packed up and headed back to the Common Room, narrowly avoiding being walked into by a harried Clarence Creevey by .

When she got there, the bronze eagle was waiting. Since being sorted into Ravenclaw, Rose had grown to hate it more than she'd ever hated anything in her life. "Please give me something easy," she begged it. She might as well have been speaking to the wall.

"_If it's information you seek, come and see me.  
If it's pairs of letters you need, I have consecutively three.  
Who am I?"_

Rose thought as hard as she could, but as so often happened she failed to come up with an answer. "I don't know. Please let me in?" The eagle didn't move. Rose sighed and sat down on the top step. She pulled out paper and pen, and began to sketch a dragon to keep herself occupied. She knew from experience that it could be a long wait.

Tonight, however, she was lucky. She had barely finished the outline when a pair of Ravenclaw prefects came up the stairs. One of them was her brother. Hugo sighed loudly when he saw her. "Stuck outside again, Rose?" His companion, Kenneth Clearwater, looked mildly amused although he tried to hide it and was almost successful.

"Yeah." Rose scowled. "Are you going to stand out here making fun of me all night, or are you going to let me in?"

On realising that it had a new audience, the eagle jumped to life once again and repeated it's riddle.

"_If it's information you seek, come and see me.  
If it's pairs of letters you need, I have consecutively three.  
Who am I?"_

"A bookkeeper," Kenneth said immediately, and the eagle moved aside to let the three of them in.

"Why are you back so early, anyway?" Rose asked. "Aren't you meant to be patrolling? Curfew's only just started."

"One of the Gryffindors has been hurt," Hugo told her. "We've been sent back to make sure that everything's normal up here."

"What happened?" Rose asked. "And who? It wasn't Albus, was it?"

"Nah, it was a girl- Harmony something? And she was hit by falling masonry, if you must know," Hugo said. "You know, that's another reason that you need to learn to do riddles- it'd be a lot safer for you if you didn't get stuck out there so often."

Rose scowled again. She hated it when Hugo acted like _he_ was the eldest. She sighed. "Yeah, right. Because I spend half my life sitting on the stairs for _fun_." She stormed off to her dormitory and pulled shut the drapes around her bed, planning to read her book for a few hours before bed.

As she tried to sleep that night, however, it occurred to her that the accident was a bit odd- Hogwarts was held together by magic and falling masonry shouldn't have been possible. She was too tired to lie awake worrying about it though.

Scorpius glanced irritably at the big library clock. Clarence Creevey was late for his tutoring session. He might have been worried, but it wasn't the first time. The boy had probably gotten lost or stuck in a staircase again- something that was understandable in your first term at Hogwarts, but not for someone entering in his second month of second year. While he waited, he pulled a book out of his bag-_ Caught_, the autobiography of Victor Krum- and began to read. He was just getting into one of his favourite passages, a description of Krum's first flight on a Firebolt, when Creevey interrupted.

Scorpius' irritation quickly vanished when he saw how pale the boy was. "Is something wrong?" he asked, as Creevey slid into the seat next to him.

"Nothing," Creevey muttered, his eyes down, not at all his usual chatty and apologetic self. "Just got lost again."

Scorpius considered pushing it, but it really wasn't any of his business. "OK. Well, I think we'll go over inanimate-animate transfigurations today." He decided to start with an easy question while the boy unpacked his stuff. "Can you tell me the five ethical standards for making objects animate?"

"Uh- number one, the object being transfigured must have enough mass to fully form the… thingy." His words tailed off as he opened his bag, obviously trying to hid the contents from Scorpius, and a lump of stone tumbled out. Scorpius reached down to scoop up the object before Creevey could hide it.

It was a gargoyle. A weathered grin dominated a weathered face, surrounded by a carved mane, and wings sprouted from it's back. If it had been real, it would have been too small for flight. "Creevey, where did you get this?"

"Uh…" Creevey was clearly struggling to come up with a coherent excuse.

With some students, Scorpius would have assumed vandalism, but it seemed unlikely with Creevey. He lacked both the co-ordination and the maliciousness to do it. Scorpius turned it over in his hands. One of the sides was uneven, clearly where it had previously been attached to a wall. Written in black charcoal were the words _Who's next?_ Scorpius frowned. He would have expected the words to be smudged from the time in Creevey's bag, but they weren't. Not surprising, he supposed. It wasn't particularly advanced magic, but it did suggest that whoever had done this had known what they planned to do.

"Creevey- Clarence, is there something I should know? If anyone is picking on you, you can tell me."

"No, there's no-one," Creevey said earnestly.

"Alright." Scorpius was sceptical, but knew not to push it. "Well, I'm going to have to report this anyway." He slipped the gargoyle into his bag, out of sight. "If you ever need to talk about anything, you know where I am. Now, back to Transfiguration."

Once Creevey had finished reciting the five ethical guidelines, he seemed to calm down. Scopius took him through the theory of the transformation, then the basic wand work and the impulse that had to be behind the words. By the end of the lesson, Creevey managed to transform a hairpin into a small millipede. Scorpius left for Transfiguration feeling satisfied, so much so that he forgot about the gargoyle until that evening. But by then it was gone.

As the bell rang for the end of a particularly tough Transfiguration class, Rose packed up with some relief. Only Scorpius had managed to transfigure himself into a bear, and the rest of the class had been set a pile of extra reading before the next lesson.

Rose pulled a face as they left the lesson with Albus and his best friend, Clifford Creevey. The two of them were her only real friends at Hogwarts. "How are we supposed to find the time to read all that stuff on top of everything else?"

"I reckon we can just wing it, "Albus said. "Nobody's going to ch-"

He was cut off as Clifford reached a patch of water on the floor, slid and fell with arms flailing. Albus burst out laughing.

Rose glared at him. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, fine." Clifford climbed to his feet. "Someone should clean this up though."

Rose looked around, and realised that the water had spilt out underneath the door of the girl's bathroom. It wasn't a bathroom she'd ever used- it had once been the site of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, and even though the chamber had been filled in back when her parents were at school it was haunted by a ghost who no-one liked talking to. She pushed the door open and peered inside. The bathroom was completely flooded, with the water gushing from a single broken sink. Above it, a large area had evidently been replastered in a hurry, more recently than the rest of the bathroom.

"Weird…" Albus muttered. "That must be the sink where the Chamber was…"

Nobody had to ask which Chamber he meant. "You don't think…?" Clifford asked in a low voice.

Scorpius pushed past her and looked around the bathroom, a worried expression on his face. "Weasley, Potter, Creevey, don't you have classes to get to?"

"Er, yes- I guess we should report this or something first?"

"I'll handle it." Scorpius stepped forward, and began checking the cubicles. Checking for bodies?

Realising the three of them were still standing there, Scorpius turned and glared at them. "I said I could handle it."

"Sorry," Rose said immediately. Albus scowled and rolled his eyes, but none of them wanted to risk detention on top of the pile of homework they'd just been given. Together they left the bathroom. "Stuck up idiot," Albus muttered as soon as they were out of earshot. "Why d'you think he's so keen to keep us out of there?"

"He's Head Boy. It's his job," Rose said. When she saw Albus begin to smirk, she immediately kicked herself for defending him. She'd nursed a crush on Scorpius for years and he didn't even know that she existed- the last thing she needed was Albus to start teasing her about that. "Not that he has to be so arrogant about it," she added hastily.

"I bet the plumbing in there's weaker because of whatever they did to fill in the chamber," Clifford added.

"Weasley, since you don't seem to need to pay attention to any of this perhaps yth hou'd like to be the one to explain it to the class?"

Rose came back to her surroundings with a jolt, realising that the whole class was staring at her. "Er… No, Professor. Sorry, Professor."

Normanby glared at her. "In that case, please indulge me and at least pretend to have some interest in the subject at hand."

Realising she had been drawing again, Rose shoved her picture underneath the piles of drawings she'd done- but not before seeing what she'd drawn. It was the same griffin-like gargoyle as before, but this time it was dancing.


	3. Chapter 3

When Charms ended, Rose headed straight back to the Common Room to collect her books for the afternoon's lessons. For once, she guessed the answer to the eagle's riddle easily- probably because it was more mathematical than usual. Then she headed down to lunch, half-wishing that Hugo had been around so she could point out how easily she'd gotten the riddle.

When she reached the Great Hall, she wondered immediately if something was wrong. The usual buzz of chatter in the hall seemed louder and more excited. The Ravenclaw table was emptier than usual, too. Rose found a group of girls from her dormitory and sat down next to them. "Hey, is something going on?"

"One of the fifth-year Prefects has been taken to the hospital wing," Elodie confided in a stage whisper, always the dramatic one. "Clearwater, I think? I've seen him with your brother."

Rose felt her heart skip a beat. Kenneth Clearwater was the one who had been with Hugo the night before. "Is- is he alright?"

"Yeah, we think so. Magic can cure pretty much anything, anyway."

"Yeah, you're right," Rose lied. She thought that since Elodie was a muggle-born, she probably hadn't been in the magical world long enough to see magic fail to save someone. The conversation moved onto theory of charms, and Rose helped herself to food and kept silent for the rest of lunch. The conversation was interesting, but she didn't want to make herself look stupid.

Finally, it was time for Defence against the Dark Arts. Professor Bones began the lesson by handing back their marked Necromancy essays. Rose was excited to get hers back- she'd worked hard on it, and she was sure that she'd have done well.

But when she saw the grade on the paper she received back, her heart sank. She had received an A, again, with a "_You make many good points. However, you need to work on clarity and spelling._" Rose sighed with frustration. The same as every other essay she'd handed in, then.

She was too annoyed to concentrate properly on the lesson, instead turning over the two accidents in her head. She'd assumed that the summoning hadn't worked- but it occurred to her that if it had, she would have done exactly the wrong thing by breaking the circle when Scorpius came in. She glanced down at her essay, which contained the magic words with a translation (covered in red scribble pointing out spelling errors) and an explanation of each of the other requirements for a summoning.

Maybe it was time to try again.

Rose decided not to do it in the same passageway this time, now that she knew Scorpius knew about it. Instead, she decided to try a caved in one on the fourth floor. It didn't lead anywhere so she doubted she would be interrupted, but there was enough space for her purposes. She snuck out of the Common Room well before curfew, hoping to get there and back without trouble.

When she arrived, she laid out her things as before, and read the words. There was a pause, during which Rose wondered if she'd been wrong about everything, and then black smoke began to billow in the larger circles. The smoke began to lick gently at the edge of the circle, probably testing for weaknesses. There were none.

A few moments later, the creature appeared in the larger circle with a pop. It was almost identical to the drawing Rose had made in the library the day before, but it wasn't made of stone- it's body was covered in eerie dark grey skin, the wings were covered in black feathers and the mane was black hair. It turned to face her, scowling as it crossed it's arms and legs. Against the greyness of every other part of it, the eyes provided a striking splash of colour- the irises were red, with flecks of bright gold. Rose just stared at it for a few moments, amazed that the spell had worked.

"What is it _now_?" it asked with a longsuffering sigh.

"I haven't asked you for anything."

The creature yawned widely, showing a mouth full of grey teeth. "You dragged me to this dimension, and I've already attacked your enemies. That used to be enough for your sort."

"I don't have enemies!"

"Not if they know what's good for them, anyway." The demon leaned back, as if into an invisible chair back, and began to pick dirt out from under long grey nails.

Rose gaped at it. "You- you hurt those people because you thought they were my _enemies_? Why would you do that?"

The creature rolled it's eyes, then went back to cleaning it's nails. "Well, you weren't very clear in your instructions, so I made a guess. Humans tend to be pretty predictable."

Rose glared. "No, we aren't. I didn't want you to hurt those people."

It sighed again. "Fine. What do I have to do to go home?"

Rose considered asking it whether she could have made it as a Gryffindor, but looking at the grey monster kneeling opposite her made her think that wasn't such a good idea. "I just want to be smart. Not the stupidest in my year, even though I'm a Ravenclaw."

The grin the creature shot her way sent shivers running down Rose's spine, and she considered taking back her request. But it was too late. The creature bowed mockingly and disappeared with a pop, leaving Rose alone in the dark with her misgivings.

Scorpius was in the library putting the finishing touches to a Potions essay when he was interrupted by Adam Price, a sixth year Slytherin prefect. Price was red-faced and out of breath when he arrived, clearly flustered by something. Scorpius sighed inwardly- he'd been hoping to escape for a few hours later to fly. Outwardly, he kept his cool. "Price, what's happened?"

"Emergency meeting. All prefects and Heads, in the Staff Room, half an hour."

Scorpius watched his hopes of any flying practice vanish completely. "All right, I'll be there. Did anyone say what it was about?"

Price glanced around, then leaned slightly closer. "More supposed 'accidents'". He made the quote marks with his fingers as he said it. "I think the teachers are starting to suggest foul play." He spoke the words in a conspiratorial whisper, his manner suggesting that he was enjoying the drama rather more than was entirely decent.

"Right. Thanks for telling me, Price. Do you need to me to pass the message on to anyone else? I'll need to drop some stuff off in the Ravenclaw Common Room anyway, I can let the Ravenclaw prefects know if you like."

"I think I've got it covered, thanks," Price said.

"Great. In that case, I'll see you in the meeting." Scorpius packed his books away neatly into his bag and returned to the Common Room. When he reached the top of the spiral staircase, he found Rose Weasley sitting on the top step, drawing quietly. It wasn't an unusual occurrence.

Her shoulder length auburn hair hung down, brushing loosely against the paper and hiding her face from view. Scopius was almost reluctant to disturb her. As he got closer she looked up, startled, her brown eyes wide with surprise. It wasn't the first time he'd thought how pretty she was, even if she wasn't his type. Not that Scorpius had a type- he'd been single for every moment of his seven years at Hogwarts.

He pushed those thoughts away, and put on his usual cold persona. "Weasley, are you stuck out here _again_? You shouldn't really be out here so close to curfew."

Rose glared at him as she stood aside to let him reach the eagle door knocker. "_Sorry_, Malfoy."

"_What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment and never in one thousand years?_" the eagle asked.

"The letter M," Scorpius said. He stood aside to let Weasley enter before him. "I'm sorry for snapping at you," he said. "It's been a long day."

"Tell me about it." Without a backwards glance, Weasley headed up to her dormitory. Scorpius paused just long enough to notice that the Common Room seemed surprisingly empty, but it was a nice evening and curfew still hadn't quite begun. There were plenty of places the other Ravenclaws could be. He climbed the staircase up to the seventh year boys' dormitory, unloaded his schoolbooks and started walking towards the Staff Room.

He was the first one there, which wasn't unusual. As Head Boy, he felt it was his responsibility to set a good example. Besides, he hated lateness. As he waited for the other prefects to arrive, he wondered if Weasley was up to something. She had certainly been up to something strange at Halloween- he hadn't really thought twice about it at the time, in his own hurry to get out of the castle when everyone else was busy with the festivities.

His train of thought was broken when Professor Longbottom stood and called the room to order. "I'm sure that by now all of you have heard about the two students currently in the hospital with injuries from falling stonework. I'm sure that those of you who know anything about the making of Hogwarts should know that it's held together by magic- falling stone shouldn't be possible." The prefects around the room exchanged glances. Scorpius shot a glare at a pair of Slytherins whispering excitedly to each other, instantly quietening them.

Longbottom paused to allow attention to return to him before continuing. "Tonight, I'm afraid that I have bad news. Two Seventh year prefects have been taken ill on patrol, and are currently in the hospital wing. We have… reason to believe that there is a common thread behind all these incidents, or attacks." More shocked glances exchanged between the prefects. "Therefore, until this matter is resolved, the number of you on patrol duty will be doubled, and all prefects must patrol in pairs. A new rota will be posted tomorrow morning. And starting from tomorrow, curfew will begin immediately after dinner ends. Students will be expected to borrow any books they need from the library during daytime hours, and should be able to work on assignments and socialise in their own common rooms. Any questions?"

Scorpius noticed more than one dismayed look on the faces around the room. He kept his face carefully blank, but inside he was disappointed too. Price raised a hand.

"Yes?" Longbottom asked.

"Do you have any ideas as to who's behind this?"

Longbottom didn't look pleased with the question. "Currently, no. The staff will be working hard to answer that question, however."

Price lowered his hand, looking disappointed. Nobody else had any questions, and Longbottom assigned prefects to patrol for the night before dismissing them. Scorpius was unsurprised to find that he was one of the first to be put on extra patrols, paired up with Hugo Weasley. The two of them were the only remaining Ravenclaw prefects. _Great,_ Scorpius thought as Hugo glared at him.

It felt like a long night, with neither of them speaking unless it was really necessary, but at least it was uneventful. Even so, Scorpius was relieved when they finally finished and he could crawl into bed to be alone with his thoughts.


	4. Chapter 4

When Rose entered the Great Hall the next morning, something was clearly wrong. Students were gathered into huddles around copies of the Daily Prophet. She sat down and ate a leisurely breakfast, knowing she had a free period first thing, before picking up and abandoned copy when another group of students left the table for their first class.

She glanced over the page which it had been left open on, and what she saw made her feel sick. _Four students injured at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._ Heart racing, Rose scanned the article. There were the two she already knew about, plus two Prefects in her year. She'd never spoken to either, but she knew that they were the best Potion brewers in her year.

Rose's gut feeling had been right- the creature clearly had different ideas about making her the smartest in the year.

She had to stop it. She pulled her crumpled Defence Against the Dark Arts essay out of her bag (she hadn't gotten around to unpacking it the night before) and scanned the page. Unfortunately, it looked as though she'd chosen to focus on what interested her most about the topic- calling the demon, and their characteristics (the mischief and hatred of humans should have been enough warning not to call one, she realised belatedly). She hadn't bothered to cover getting rid of the thing once it was here.

Rose groaned. How had this stupid essay even managed an E? The lesson was called Defence against the Dark Arts, not "how to get people killed". There was only one thing for it. She had to sneak into the library late at night, and get another look at the book.

Rose was fidgety and distracted for the rest of the day, and all through the evening. She stayed up as late as she could in the Common Room, trying to get through her homework, then read in bed by the glow of her wand until it was late enough that she thought the Prefects would be finishing their patrols.

The castle always felt creepy so late at night, even though Rose had spent plenty of time sneaking around in the dark. The corridors were silent, and lit only by moonlight spilling through the windows. Rose hurried as much as she could, still listening out for prefects or teachers despite the lateness of the hour. She reached the library without incident and crept to the Restricted Section, pulling her wand out as she went. "_Lumos_," she whispered as she reached the books.

She scanned the row of titles by the glow of her wand, horribly aware of how obvious it would be if anyone happened to come into the library. She quickly found the book she was looking for and pulled it off the shelf.

A loud scream split the silence of the library, and Rose winced. "_Silencio_!" she hissed, jabbing her wand at the book. The book continued to scream. Panicking, Rose slammed the book shut and jammed it back on the shelf. The screaming kept going- it didn't even get quieter.

Rose began to run for the corridor, but stopped when she heard footsteps outside. She ducked behind a shelf of books to allow the caretaker past, and then began to run. Without thinking about where she was going, she found herself standing by the entrance to the caved-in passageway on the fourth floor. Suddenly, she knew what she had to do.

Rose crept into the passageway. Her stuff was all still there from last time- the circles hadn't even smudged. She carefully sprinkled more black salt, lit the candles and then the ritual. She hardly even needed her sheet of notes by now.

When the demon appeared in it's circle, Rose didn't give it a chance to speak. "I want you to leave me alone!" she yelled. "Don't do anything for me, don't hurt any more prefects, just go away until I find a way to get rid of you. Understood?"

The demon smirked. "No problem. I'm already going." It disappeared again, leaving Rose standing in the candlelight, feeling exhausted and scared. The demon had agreed far too easily to her request.

Not knowing what else to do, she crept back to her dormitory and lay in the dark for hours before finally falling asleep.

Rose spent all of the next day waiting with dread for news of the gargoyle's next attack, but no news came. By the evening, she had almost convinced herself that it would be OK. She was sitting in the Common Room, drawing, when Hugo burst in and rushed straight over to her.

He was flustered and out of breath, something Rose rarely saw. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Rose… I have some bad news. I want you to hear before people start gossiping." He paused, and Rose wasn't sure whether he was reluctant to continue or just catching his breath. "It's- it's Lily."

Rose gasped and stared at him. "Lily? What- what happened to her?"

"We don't really know. She disappeared from her dormitory last night, and we've only just realised she's disappeared, not just skiving off. But… there was a note left on her bed. Don't tell anyone, but we think it might refer to the Chamber of Secrets."

Rose realised her mouth was still hanging open, and forced it shut. "Right…"

"Will you be OK? I'm supposed to be on patrol."

"Sure," Rose said. In truth, she was glad to be rid of him. She had plans for tonight.

Yet again, Rose crept out of her dormitory after everyone was asleep, just as the Prefects had begun going to bed. Halloween had been the first time she'd done it, and now it was becoming a habit. She tried not to think about what would happen if the eagle gave her a puzzle she couldn't solve on the way in again. Once again, she was lucky and didn't see anyone on her way to the second floor bathroom.

She pushed the door to the bathroom open gingerly, wincing as it creaked. It had clearly been a long time since anyone had come here. The sink which had been plastered over last time she was here was now on the floor, and the wall itself was now a pile of rubble at the foot of a gaping hole. Rose moved closer, trying to be as silent as possible. It looked as though the concreted had been gouged out by a set of long claws- clearly the gargoyle had grown up.

Rose peered down the hole. She could see a few metres of smooth, grey stone with patches of slimy mould clinging to it. The rest was blackness. Rose felt sick. She thought about going back to bed, but then remembered that Lily was down there. With a deep breath, she swung her legs into the hole and pushed herself downwards.

The pipe twisted and turned, sometimes getting steeper so the dank air of the tunnel rushed past her face with terrifying speed and then levelling out so Rose could breathe again. Occasionally she passed small tunnels leading off to the sides, letting small patches of brighter light into the main tunnel. Eventually, the tunnel levelled off once again and Rose landed with a splash into a puddle the floor of the tunnel.

She pulled herself shakily to her feet, wiping the grey slime off her hands and onto her robes. Then she looked around. The entire place was flooded with a few inches of water, but there was only one way to go, so she started walking. She quickly came to the place where tunnel had caved around, and looked around for the place where her dad had cleared a path through all those years ago. It turned out to be not so much a path as a tiny space she had to crawl through, getting almost her entire body wet in the process, but she made it and continued down the tunnel.

After a few more minutes walking down seemingly endless dark tunnels, with only the sound of constant drips falling from the ceiling to keep her company, she finally heard voices ahead. Rose paused and pressed herself against the tunnel wall, creeping closer as she tried to gauge the distance between her and the sound.

"Open it for me." The voice was a low growl, only half-human.

"I- I can't." The second voice was unmistakably Lily's, and Rose could hear the fear in it even though Lily was clearly trying to sound brave.

"But you speak snake."

"No."

Rose crept closer, peering around a sharp bend in the tunnel. Lily was kneeling on the floor in front of two huge snakes. It took Rose a moment to realise that they weren't real, and even when she realised that their bodies were stone the emerald eyes seemed somehow to be more than simple gems. The gargoyle stood behind Lily, grown larger than a man and standing on two legs. The eyes were no longer the only patch of colour: it's mane was now a rich gold that cascaded down past it's shoulders, and it wore bright crimson robes. Rose shivered and pulled back, turning her wand over in her hands and trying to decide on her plan of attack. _Maybe a stunning spell? _But when trying to stun something that size which was clearly magical, she would have to be careful to not simply make it angrier.

As she thought, there was a splash behind her and a muffled curse. Rose spun, wand extended to stun until she realised who it was.

"_Scorpius ?_"


End file.
